Suchmos -- 808

I was talking with one of the commenters for Suchmos' "STAY TUNE" article and I was recommended to try out their first download single back in February 2018, "808". I liked "STAY TUNE" but listening to the band's contribution to this year's World Cup coverage on NHK, "VOLT-AGE", I kinda had a Meh reaction to that one.

However with "808", it was back to the Like column. It's a nice number for groovy funk although the lyrics seem to be about the alienation of life in the city. Well, as I've said in some of the other articles, I've always been more for the melody than for the lyrics so I'm liking "808" just fine. I also mentioned in "STAY TUNE" that there was a good hint of Jamiroquai in Suchmos' work, and that's definitely the case here. Suchmos took care of the groove while band drummer OK handled the lyrics.

"808" was also used as the campaign song for the Honda Vezel, and apparently some of those Hondas even made their appearance in the music video. The song reached No. 8 on Billboard Japan's Top Download Songs. It is also a track on Suchmos' first mini-album "The Ashtray" which came out in June. So far, it has gotten as high as No. 2 on Oricon.